The BMA council chair has called for the creation of a new medical regulator, solely for doctors, amid ‘prolonged and repeated’ concerns about the GMC.

At the association’s annual representative meeting (ARM) in Liverpool, Philip Banfield shared the results of a survey of doctors which found that 82 per cent support the creation of a new regulator, with only 6 per cent against.

Only 16 per cent of respondents said they have confidence in the GMC’s ability to fulfil its primary function of protecting the public, and 61 per cent said they did not.

In his opening speech, Prof Banfield warned that the GMC’s approach to regulating physician associates has led to ‘incessant and unsafe blurring of professional boundaries that threaten the very foundations of practising medicine, what it means to be a doctor’ and of a ‘dangerous obsession with substituting doctors’ at the expense of patient safety.

He said: ‘More than 150 years ago the BMA, led by our founder Sir Charles Hastings, campaigned for the creation of a medical regulator that could protect the public’ and that ‘today we have to unearth the old battles, we have to fight for the soul of our profession and renew our calls for a regulator, one unburdened by the abject failure of what the GMC has become’.

‘The fight for the soul of our profession is here and now,’ Prof Banfield added.

The BMA has long criticised the GMC’s treatment of doctors and has previously passed motions of no confidence in the regulator. 

Prof Banfield announced the launch of a BMA register for doctors to sign in support of a new regulator for doctors only. 

He told the ARM that the GMC had failed the medical profession and patients for far too long, that it was ‘clueless about how medicine is delivered’.

He said the GMC was ‘condescending of the working lives of doctors, contemptuous of the profession’s legitimate safety concerns’ and that it has disregarded its statutory duty to protect patients.

He said doctors and their patients needed a regulator that, ‘protects patients, treats doctors fairly,’ and ‘puts them at the heart of its decision-making and supports high quality medical education across a whole career’.

The BMA believes a new medical regulator should have a clear statutory duty to protect the public, rather than this simply being an overarching objective, regulate doctors only, providing the public with a clear distinction between uniquely qualified doctors and non-doctor roles.

The association says a new regulator should enforce new statutory protections of medical practitioner titles to ensure the public is not confused by ‘perplexing’ NHS job titles that blur the lines between doctors and non-doctors.

Prof Banfield compared the blurring of lines between doctors and physician associates to the Post Office scandal, with the BMA having identified more than 600 serious concerns about PAs raised by doctors.  

He called for a public inquiry into the issue, and said the £62 million spent on PAs was an ‘extravagant waste’ and would have been better spent on training doctors that ‘patients really need’.

‘This is happening because of catastrophic, incomprehensible and negligent workforce planning,’ he said.

With the announcement of the Government’s Ten Year Plan expected in the coming weeks, Prof Banfield said the government must not make the same mistakes as previous ones and called on the plan to address doctor unemployment and ‘whether resident doctors will continue to face unemployment because of ludicrous specialty bottlenecks’ which he described as ‘another debacle that the NHS and its paymasters have been aware of for years, but haven’t lifted a finger to resolve, let alone taken any responsibility for.’

He said health secretary Wes Streeting must ‘pay the cost for the medical expertise’ because ‘it costs infinitely more not to’.

Prof Banfield said the BMA had ‘won the highest pay awards for a generation – securing over £1 billion for doctors,’ and that, ‘resident doctors are balloting for industrial action in England after the health secretary’s promises to restore pay ‘fell at the first hurdle’.

He added: ‘But make no mistake, this ballot is not simply about pay, it’s essential that we send a clear message to government that deals must be honoured.’

Professor Banfield’s speech also referenced the BMA’s work to help bring in the ban on single use vapes; the association’s work in successfully lobbying for safeguards in the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to protect doctors, and its role as a core participant in the Covid Inquiry.